


My Sunshine

by calixte



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Gen, Super mega fluff, give Sunshine a better enclosure 2020, pets and pet care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24561145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calixte/pseuds/calixte
Summary: Sunshine gets an upgraded enclosure. That's it, that's the fic.
Relationships: Gil Arroyo & Malcolm Bright
Comments: 9
Kudos: 41





	My Sunshine

Malcolm never really intended for Sunshine to work out. He’d had snakes when he was younger, one of the few teenage rebellions he’d still managed, though the thought of purposefully buying frozen dead mice for food had horrified his mother. He’d loved the animals, feeling they understood him for how little everyone else understood them: they weren’t slimy, weren’t cruel, they just...worked the way they did. Mercedes had been his last snake, a sunbeam that had been his frequent companion for nine years; then he’d gone off to college, and to Quantico, and had no more time, not to mention room, for pets. 

Coming back to New York had meant Ainsley had badgered him into getting some kind of companion (girlfriend, Malcolm, I meant _get a girlfriend_ ), and so had come Sunshine. She was rapidly becoming the happiest fixture in his life, the animated little parakeet forever fluttering her wings when he came in, or perching on his shoulders and hands to rub her head on his cheek, nibbling gently with her beak. He’d hold out a stalk of millet seeds for her to nibble on and smile, thinking the bird was cute. 

Cute was probably as good as it was going to get. But he’d never really expected to take to her so fast, or so readily, and eight months after moving back to New York for good he found himself looking at her cage--which was pretty, brass wired and elegant and technically, he supposed, big enough for a single tiny bird like a parakeet--with no small measure of dissatisfaction. He could do better.

He called Gil first, after some frankly exhaustive searching online on his own, sitting at his desk and scrolling through site after site, picture gallery after picture gallery, in search of better ideas. All the while, at least, Sunshine had been his constant happy companion, preening her feathers and sitting on his wrist, shifting as he clicked and showed her pictures as if she’d be able to point out ones she liked. He’d known Gil was an animal person, and had known he’d had at least one cat: Malcolm couldn’t quite remember what the newest one’s name was, only that said animal was enormous for a feline. 

Gil had gladly come over with a pencil and graph paper, handy enough with interpreting Malcolm-ese into English to figure out what the kid wanted. He had six floors, after all, and god knew the kid wouldn’t use all of it himself. Together they’d come up with a sort of half-walled aviary, big enough to take up half a room, with a little shallow pool and planters all around. Gil had smiled seeing Malcolm get so into the planning, stroking Sunshine’s head with a fingertip each time he added input as she trilled at him. 

Actually building the thing had been, predictably, hilarious--Malcolm was terrible at construction. He shied away from hammers, which Gil completely understood, but the first time he’d backed into a drill left lying on one of the sawhorses and had startled himself with the first touch of cool metal, Gil laughed hard enough to feel the weight of the last few months lift. It was just a little, but it was something. 

“It’s not a spider, city boy,” he’d teased, “It won’t bite you. Just don’t back up in a construction zone, hm?” It was too easy to trip over power cords, or run into someone carrying heavy or sharp things. “Come on. Lunch break, and you’re buying,” Gil said, companionably roping Malcolm in with a hand comfortingly heavy at the back of his neck, thumb rubbing to soothe. “I’ll show you pictures of Portland.” 

That got Malcolm’s attention, brows lifting as his head turned. “When did you go to Portland?” 

“The cat, kid, the cat,” Gil corrected, pulling his phone out. “Portland cement. Heavy as hell.” The gallery was mostly pictures of the LeMans, or of Jackie--Malcolm offered a reassuring smile to Gil as he scrolled through--until he came to a photo, obviously a selfie, of Gil in jeans and a sweater with most everything from his hips to his knees covered in a brown and gray and white mass of fur. 

It had alert ears, and Malcolm could almost see the little fur-tufts at their tips quivering, and big yellow-orange eyes, half-shut in contentment. “That’s him. I’d’ve named him after you, ‘cause he’s always on my case over something,” Gil said, handing the phone over to Malcolm, “But I think he outweighs you.”

Malcolm gave him a flat, unamused look. 

Gil grinned. “Two to one.” 

“See if I buy you lunch now,” Malcolm shot back as they made the turn onto the street, heading to the nearest burger joint. Gil knew Malcolm wouldn’t eat much, but he himself would, having few to none of the food aversions Bright did. He was amused at the way he picked at his salad, and swiped one of his onion rings. 

Having devoured a grand total of two onion rings, a pickle spear and four forkfuls of lettuce and carrot, Malcolm waited for Gil to finish, passing the time chatting about how he’d come to acquire a cat of such size as Portland, smiling when the story turned out that Jackie had gotten the kitten not knowing how big he’d turn out to be. “We didn’t name it then, since the little guy didn’t give us any idea,” Gil explained, shaking his head and swallowing down another bite. Malcolm knew Jackie’s loss still weighed heavily on Gil, partly because Malcolm wasn’t immune to the feeling himself. Jackie had loved him like family, and the feelings weren’t one-sided. He still remembered showing up to her funeral in a new suit his mother had bought for him, unrelieved black feeling and looking as stiff and brittle as Malcolm had felt.

“So you just called him cat?” Malcolm asked with a little chuckle. 

Gil laughed, shaking his head. “Kitten, mostly, but Jackie could screech it when he knocked over anything on the table. He didn’t ever show us much to name him for until she was gone, and he grew like crazy. Put on all that weight, and it was like lugging bags of concrete mix again. So it stuck. Why’d you name yours Sunshine?” 

Malcolm grinned. “Sunshine Bright didn’t seem obvious?” he teased. “Mother used to call me her little ray of sunshine. Before...everything,” he sighed, determined not to get into it today. Gil wouldn’t push.

He just gave Malcolm a fatherly smile, rubbed the back of Bright’s neck, and finished his burger in the silence that let Malcolm come back to himself and shove all thoughts of his fractious family out of his head again. As well as that ever happened. 

“Come on, let’s get back to your baby, city boy. She’ll be waiting on us.” 

Once it was finally done, the fine screen mesh attached to walls and ceiling and the sand spread evenly over the floor, Malcolm brought Sunshine to the aviary on his hand, letting her peck away at the millet stalks he’d bought for her. It was easily a big enough enclosure for her to fly in, and for him to join her as well. The water pool he’d had Gil build into it only came up to his ankles, but the many wooden slats just under the surface meant sunshine could bathe in it and play in the water without him having to run the tap in the sink. 

Malcolm sat beside Gil as the parakeet winged around them both, swooping and perching on the rainbow-colored stick bridges and perches, some shelves holding bird-safe plants and things for Sunshine to play with, bells and sticks and millet stalks. This was better, it felt more permanent, both jarring and comforting at once that him staying in New York was real, was going to last for a while this time, for better or worse. 

“It’s really nice work, Gil,” he said. “I have to pay--”

“Don’t even think about paying for me this, kid,” Gil interrupted, shaking his head as he shucked the took belt around his waist, and his worn-in tennis shoes--he’d foregone the steel-toed boots, though he still had a pair. Even if Malcolm hadn’t yet, he was going to take full advantage of the cool water at their feet. “It’s worth it to see you looking happy for once.”


End file.
